Editorial: Quick response at WIPP a testament to safety priorities

Truck fires happen all the time. When they happen half a mile underground, however, at a secure federal compound responsible for disposal of the nation's nuclear waste, it gets plenty of attention.

The nation's eyes were on Eddy County this week as a truck used to haul salt from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant caught on fire, prompting the evacuation of the nuclear waste dump site 26 miles east of Carlsbad.

It should be noted that the fire was located on the north side of the WIPP mine, near the site's salt excavation shaft -- about as far away from the stored nuclear materials as you can get in the underground area.

Public safety was never at risk, according to the Department of Energy officials. To be sure, WIPP, which is regulated by the DOE, has a reputation for safety. In its 14 years of existence, the operation has safely transported 11,500 shipments more than 14 million miles.

Incidents at the site are rare, but they do happen. DOE spokesman Roger Nelson said there have been previous incidents that have required emergency evacuations in WIPP's history, but Wednesday's fire, considered relatively minor by all accounts, was the most serious.

WIPP and DOE officials should be commended for taking quick action, evacuating the facility, accounting for all employees, and alerting the public right away.

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That doesn't mean, however, that there aren't concerns. A federally appointed team of inspectors will conduct a full investigation before the facility is allowed to resume normal operations, and if problems are found, we hope they are quickly and thoroughly addressed.

The work WIPP does is too important to allow a relatively minor incident to derail the site's future. WIPP has always been a sensitive topic, and understandably so given the volatile nature of nuclear politics, but it's currently the only disposal solution that makes sense for America's growing stockpile of radioactive waste.

That said, the fire couldn't have come at a worse time. WIPP is nearing the end of its intended lifespan, and various groups are discussing the possibilities for its extended future. The site, which opened in 1999, is licensed to excavate and fill up to eight panels, which are basically massive hallways cut into the deep salt beds of the Permian Basin. Eventually, the salt will slowly fill in around the disposed nuclear waste, burying it forever.

They're filling up Panel 7 now, and it won't be long until Panel 8 goes into production. But there's plenty of potential life for the facility, even beyond the projected 2030 shutdown date. Thanks to the work being conducted at WIPP, salt is quickly being recognized as an ideal medium for the disposal of nuclear waste -- and not just the low-level transuranic stuff they're burying now. In March, the federal U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board will meet in Albuquerque to discuss opportunities for using salt beds to dispose of high-level radioactive waste, such as spent nuclear fuel. It'll take an act of Congress to change the type of materials WIPP can accept, but there's every reason to think that, eventually, WIPP could expand its mission to include other types of waste.

Unless new details about Wednesday's fire come to light, WIPP's critics shouldn't be allowed to use the incident as an argument against its continued use. The way WIPP and DOE handled the incident is a testament to the facility's steadfast attention to safety.